TV3’s request to be a member of the European Broadcasting Union has been rejected. The regional broadcaster had applied for EBU membership in order to have the chance to take part in the Eurovision contests as an independent broadcaster.
In a letter to CCMA (Catalonian Corporation of Visual Media)’s Vice-President and Acting person Núria Llorach i Boladeras EBU said:
As you know, the Executive Board in May 201B (as confirmed by the EBU General Assembly in June 2018), concluded that CCMA does not fulfil the EBU membership criteria since Catalonia is not a member county Of the ITU or the Council of Europe as set Out in Article 3.3 of the EBU. CCMA is a regional broadcaster from Spain and does not meet the “national character and importance” criterion set out in Article 3.4 of the EBU Statutes.
At their application, the Catalonian broadcaster alleged several reasons to be considered, including a referral to broadcasters like RTBF and S4C, which EBU answered:
When a country has two or more linguistic areas, EBU Regulation on Detailed Membership Criteria refers to each area individually. ARD, Germany, SRG SSR, Switzerland, VRT and RTBF, Belgium and S4C in Wales reflect their territorial features of their respective States and all of them meet the principles promulgated by the EBU.
The European Broadcasting Union also added some arguments for each of the members mentioned and further information about Spain’s political structure demonstrating in detail why CCMA can’t access a membership.
You can read the full document on Cronica Global – EL Español website.